Cracks
by Chaimera
Summary: My first serious HP fic. HGSS, character death, mentions of rape and torture, suicide. You have been warned.


Chaimera: Before we start, J.K. Rowling owns every character mentioned in this story, don't sue me.  
  
C.C: This is dark….hehehe  
  
Rayne: Your so cruel.  
  
C.C: um….So?  
  
Chaimera: Anyway, "Pavement Cracks"Ú is on the album "Bare"  
  
Kaz: Get on with it….   
  
Cracks  
  
"And love don't show up in the pavement cracks  
  
All my watercolours fade to black  
  
I'm goin' nowhere and I'm ten steps back  
  
All my dreams have fallen flat"  
  
-"Pavement Cracks"  
  
Annie Lennox.  
  
I stare at Madame Pomfrey in disbelief. She's still talking to me but her words of comfort fall on deaf ears. My mind is a whirl of thoughts and memories all of them bad, very very bad. I nod dumbly at her. "I should go back to my room, get some sleep."   
  
She nods and gives me a sympathetic smile.   
  
Sleep. Ha, I haven't slept in week, and I'm definitely not going to now. I leave the hospital wing quietly, repressing my sudden urge to scream. My head tells me this cant be happening. Not this as well. Not after every thing.   
  
The war was over, not with out it's casualty's, myself being one of them and Ron I miss him terribly, but it was over. Nothing bad was supposed to happen now.   
  
It just isn't fair.   
  
I am lucky to be alive or so I'm told, but that doesn't mean I want to be.   
  
I remember there was an attack on Hogsmeade. There was screaming and smoke and I was grabbed from behind. When I woke up, the pain was unimaginable. And it got worse. They raped me, tortured me, tortured others in front of me, trying to get me to tell them things about Harry, the order and a host of other things that I knew nothing about. I had been told shortly before I was taken that I needed to wake up to reality. Well that was a wake up call that I couldn't ignore. And the irony was that the man who told me this was the one who found me and then, I laugh bitterly at the memory, he apologised. Very uncharacteristic.   
  
But then every thing he did in those few moments were. He wrapped his cloak around me and picked me up gently.   
  
It was a strange moment.   
  
I haven't been able to sleep since I left the hospital wing 3 weeks ago. Sleep brings nightmares, images that I really don't want to see again. That I never wanted to see in the first place. I'm walking slowly back to Gryffindor tower but I stop, tears pricking up in my eyes for the first time in weeks. I have been walking in a state of numbness recently but it seems my latest dose of reality has broken my delicate emotional shield. I slide down the wall hugging my knees dry sobs wracking my body. My head shoots up as I see a light coming around the corridor.   
  
"Mrs Norris saw a student up this way professor."   
  
I cringe at the sound of Filch's voice and get up hurriedly, not eager to be found in my currant emotional state. I turn and walk quickly in the opposite direction but apparently its not quick enough. "Stop right there."   
  
I freeze in place.   
  
"Turn around so we can see ya, you rule breaker."   
  
I turn slowly to face Filch and Professor Snape. Well this is interesting isn't it? I was just thinking about him. I'm pretty sure I look like I've been crying. My face hurts and is still damp. As I look at the pair of them our eyes meet and look away.   
  
The floor sure is fascinating.   
  
"I'll take care of this Mr Filch."   
  
"Very well professor."   
  
I'm still looking at the floor as Filch and Mrs Norris pass by me. I look up at Snape avoiding eye contact.   
  
"Sir, I was up in the hospital wing to.." He cuts me off as he walks up to me and lays a hand on my arm.   
  
"What's wrong?"   
  
Well I have to say I wasn't expecting that. His expression is soft and comforting. Very unlike the familiar over grown bat that resides in the dungeons.   
  
"It's nothing,…I…nothing." I flinch at the sound of my own voice, which is raw and horse from crying.   
  
"Hermione…." He sighs, and I look up at him. He's never used my first name before. I like the way he says it. But I really shouldn't think that way. He's looking at me very strangely. I make to move away but his grip on my arm tightens. I look at him questioningly and he kisses me.   
  
Now I have to say this is the strangest situation I have ever been in. And that includes the time I turned my self in to a cat/girl thing. Even stranger is that I'm enjoying it. It's one in the morning and Professor Severus Snape is kissing me on the corridor.   
  
If only Ron was alive to see this. I'm not sure whether he would collapse in laughter or throw up. His hand move down my body to my hips and I start to panic. Flashes of other men, other hands, unwanted and painful. I gasp and push him away. I fall against the wall trying to catch my breath which seems to have caught in my chest.   
  
"Sorry, I…I….Oh god." The last part comes out as a strange strangled sound. A mix between a laugh and a sob.   
  
He looks hurt but shakes his head. "No, I'm sorry. I should have thought. It's only been a few weeks." The tears start to fall again, no matter how much I try to stop them. He jumps forward and wraps an arm around my shoulders, supporting me as he leads towards an open classroom. Even his arm around my shoulders, an innocent touch that I want to take pleasure and comfort in, conjures up sickening memories. I sit on a desk and he sits across from me.   
  
"What's wrong?" He asks me again. It really is very odd. But now I feel like I can tell him. I mean I have to tell someone else before…..well lets not think about that now. I sniff a bit, waiting for the hiccupping to stop so that I can explain. He waits patiently, giving me time. I'm finally ready so I look up at him.   
  
"I'm pregnant."   
  
He looks shocked. I was.  
  
"Who?"   
  
"The god's only know. It could be any one of those bastards. Hell I could have Freddy Kruger growing in me."   
  
"What are you going to do?"   
  
"I really don't know." I really have to stop lying. "This kinda blows all my plans out of the water. I really don't know if I can go on the way I'm going. Not even able to touch anyone without panicking. Not my parents, not Harry, not the man I love." I make a vague hand gesture towards him, not realising what I've said.   
  
And then it clicks with both of us. "oh…"   
  
"Is that what you really feel like?"   
  
"I need to go now."   
  
I turn and run. I know where I'm going and I can hear him running behind me.   
  
"Hermione!" He calls out my name, but my minds made up.   
  
I look out over the Hogwarts grounds. The astrology tower is the highest building. I know from many midnight excursions. I can hear him coming up behind me. The wind is sweeping my hair up around me and I can feel him standing behind me.   
  
"Did you ever wonder what it would feel like to jump?"   
  
"Hermione.." He cant stop saying it now can he.   
  
"When I was little, we had a holiday house on a mountain. I used to throw stuff off the cliff near the house and listen to it hit the bottom, and I always wondered, what would I sound like hitting the ground. It really is fascinating."   
  
"Don't leave." Its an interesting way of asking someone not to jump, and if it had been any other time it would have worked, but my minds made up.   
  
"Severus, this is no way to live. And this baby, I'll do nothing but hate it, even though I know it's at no fault. I cant live like this."   
  
"Please don't."   
  
Sorry.   
  
I walk up to him and kiss him softly. This time it is fine. No panic, just happiness. I slip my hand into his robes and grab his wand. I pull away and throw it down the stair well. His face has a look of dread on his face. You know through all of the fighting and the war, this is the only time I've ever seen him frightened. I kiss him again for reassurance.   
  
And then I jump.   
  
I have to tell you, dieing is an interesting experience. Myself on Ron compared notes and I say my way was better. My baby is here to. She's beautiful, but I know had we been alive, it never would have worked. I still visit Severus in his dreams. He's sad, but we'll be together again. And for the record, Ron laughed and then threw up.  
  
End.  
  
  
  
Chaimera:………I'm sorry.  
  
Kaz: And you should be.  
  
C.C: Oooh look here comes Snape.  
  
Chaimera: Hide me.  
  
Rayne: Oh well, Reviews, good and bad are all welcome.  
  
Kaz: Milk and cookies to all that do, oh, and extra chocolate chips to those of you who spot the "Hyper Ballad" referance. 


End file.
